Google will tune your webserver

Search Engine outfit Google has been taking time out from its busy schedule of looking up phrases like “Randy Moss” and “Twilight” to write a bit of code to speed up your server.

Google’s new module for the Apache HTTP server is called mod_pagespeed and apparently it can perform many speed optimisations automatically. If it works it means that you don’t have to fine tune your server configuration for every site you setup.

Writing in its bog, Google notes that it has seen mod_pagespeed reduce page load times by up to 50 percent.

Mod_pagespeed makes changes to pages built by a CMS without having to change the CMS itself. It can recompress images when the HTML context changes, extend the cache lifetime for elements like logos and images on your website to a year, while still letting you update those files.

Apparently Google will be working with Go Daddy to get mod_pagespeed running on many of its servers and Contendo to integrate mod_pagespeed into its CDN.

As far as Linux is concerned, Google has released the mod for CentOS, RHEL, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora but you can download the source and compile it if you want to use it on something else.